Did I Hurt your Feelings?
by Werewolf's One
Summary: Demyx on a mission we all know about, and a discussion about hearts with a mysterious figure in black.


AN: I have to apologize to myself. I promised myself my first KH fic would be about Luxord. But this is about Demyx. :( If you read this please write a story about Luxord. For me. He only has like 8 pages.  
OH and if I end up changing tenses a few times, please tell me in your review. I need for practice with 1st person. Thnx.

Word count: 2037 - Short! D:  
I lied. No new chapter.

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So, I'm walking through the Underworld. This isn't a pleasant thing to do. Xigbar is always going on and on about how I "dwell on things too much, Demyx," or "Demyx, stop sulking and get to work," but I don't assign _myself_ to the depressing worlds, do I? Or are they depressing? Sometimes it is hard to be sure. Being without heart and soul has it's drawbacks.

So... I'm walking through the underworld. I'm on a mission, to deliver a warning and, if I'm unfortunate enough, kill somebody. I suppose I would be upset at this in my previous life (or maybe I'd be glad?) but I don't feel anything about it today, and I probably never will.

And here I am, sulking again. I wish I could play my sitar without causing ultimate cataclysm and calamity. Music always cheers me, even more than a job well done and a pat on the back.

I pause in my day dreaming and glance around, checking my location. I stare ahead of me; there are three dismal looking paths forwards and one dreary path back the way I came. I wonder which to take; forward, slightly left, or directly left? Or backwards? Or I could stay here for a while. I wasn't good at the whole concept of 'navigation'. I was fortunate my orders weren't more specific than "Find the Wielder of the Keyblade and deliver this warning; he'll be in the Underworld at Olympia. And don't fail this time". Though this aimless wandering and waiting are giving me a lot of free time. If only I could play my sitar.

The thought of music again fills my mind. I focus on it more, and suddenly I feel a strange sensation. I have felt it before, when I think of playing my sitar. I move onwards again, my shiny black books scuffing a slow rhythm against the greyish grey stone floor. The feeling continues to stir in me. I wonder what I should do about it? A strange urge is coming on. I try frowning, and quickly have to stop. That didn't fit at all. Maybe if I scrunch my eyes closed? ...No, that doesn't help. I smile. It stays on my face and feels natural. The feeling inside of me swells, then changes; I try to pull it back to what it was try to find something tangible to hold onto, but it is like trying to pull back a fading dream. My smile is gone, as is the feeling. I continue walking.

Oh, I had kept walking, hadn't I? Which way had I gone? I glance behind me, but it is too dark to see very far. A short ways up my current tunnel are lights; those odd ones that float about and do nothing. Are they souls? I wonder why hearts aren't as easy to come by. I enter a large room and am promptly blinded; the area is overflowing with floating, luminous wisps. It is as bright as daylight, brighter, and I look up to see that the cavern doesn't have a ceiling but a coating of the strange bright objects. A gathering point? A gathering point of souls. I try to resist the urge to frolic among them. I am not successful.

I run about and wave my arms in a group of luminescent balls. They scatter like gnats in a breeze and I run to the next one. That strange feeling is coming back. I wish it away, so it wouldn't bother me, and it leaves quite suddenly. I have half a moment to celebrate my victory over it when I realize I have halted in my frolicking and am standing still, the desire to run around completely gone. I feel no loss but wish I did. I wish I could go back to the feeling again, but even now as I try to remember it, it seems to have never existed. I stare ahead blankly, wondering what had happened, holding my black gloved hands to my black-clad chest.

"You're a nobody."

I whirl around, my hands still over my front as if trying to cover myself from a peeping tom. I realize how silly I look and quickly put my arms behind my back and stand full attention, preparing to stare down any adversaries.

Except I see nobody. I look left and right, and up, but there isn't anyone else in the bright cave that I can see. A potentially dangerous situation is brewing, I could feel it. Monsters of all sorts could come in invisible. I don't say anything and prepare to search the walls frantically for the nearest exit, as I can't see one through the glowing white.

"Down here!"

The squeaky voice speaks with what I know to be laughter. I don't move, but something near the ground bats away the wisps and I see a very small figure in black. Very small, with a very strange head. Are those ears?

"W-who are you?" And why is my voice shaking, I want to add.

"... I can't say. But what's somebody to a nobody?" He sounds proud of his word play.

That voice is oddly high pitched. I cannot see much of the person's details; solid black in a very white setting can do that. I wonder if I look like the shapeless blob he appears to be, in my own black ensemble. It takes a second for his words to reach my ears. I feel I should correct him, but for what? Isn't he right? "Just because I'm a nobody..."

The small person sighs sadly. "I'm sorry, did I hurt your feelings? I should be more careful about what I say."

"Oh, it's alright!" I hope I didn't upset him myself; he clearly isn't an enemy. We have matching outfits! "I don't have feelings anyway. I am a nobody."

"You looked like you were having fun." He observes. At least, I think it's a he.

I cock my head to the side. "I can't really have fun. Or be happy, or sad, or upset, or offended, or proud, or scared, or worried, or anxious, or grateful, or depressed..." Ooops, I'm prattling again. Xemnas hates useless talk. "Or hateful come to think of it."

"You don't feel anything at all?"

The conversation changes moods. He isn't asking because he's doesn't know, he's asking to see what I know. Like... a teacher? I've never had a teacher before. "Nothing at all, ever." But I feel like I'm lying. Lying to my first teacher! My mind darts back to twenty minutes ago at the caves crossroads. "Well..."

He says nothing for a few moments, seeing if I will continue. "I know of a nobody who does feel."

I stare at him. "That's not possible. We don't feel things, we just... just remember what is was like. That can't be a nobody. Who is it?"

"I can't tell you his name."

I thought of Roxas, and how he and Axel had always been... friendly? Close? Before... that stuff happened. I curse myself; the sensation in me comes back stronger than ever, but different. This time a frown fits perfectly. I quickly clear my face and my mind, and the sensation disappears like a speck on the wind, as if it will never again return to me.

"I bet you feel, too." The little figure says. No sarcasm or humor, no doubt or double meanings.

I remain silent. I suddenly want to be somewhere else, and yet I want to know everything this figure tells me. I don't know what I want.

"Tell me," the figure continues, "was there anything different when you were running in the lights?"

I nod.

"What was it like?"

I shake my head. "I don't know." But I do know; it's like you suddenly realize something you had forgotten. It was a tingly, warm, buzzy sensation, something that made me feel good, and it was slightly familliar. Like you couldn't remember an old friend's name, then in the middle of the night you wake up and can recite their full name and address. And then it's gone just as quickly, as if the remembering part had been a dream in itself, and you can't remember what your dream-self said their name was, and the harder you try to recall the further away it slips.

But do I want to tell this strange? Xaldin tells me not to trust anyone but the Organization. But the even Organization itself wasn't all to be trusted.

The figure stares at me, and I know he knows I am lying. "I had a mentor once." His words become reminiscent. "He was... is the smartest person I know. He has studied many subjects for years, including heartless and nobodies. He tells me they cannot feel, that they are empty husks of their former selves. The only things they are capable of are action and memory."

I nod to myself; that all sounds right.

But the squeaky-voiced person isn't done. "I've always respected my master's opinions, and had faith in his teachings. But you know what? I think he missed something. Something you can't see unless you've been in the darkness, something you can't know until you really know your own heart."

What is he talking about?

"I don't know about anyone else, but I know my heart, and it's strong. It affects my whole being; every action I take and everything I do. And if anyone ever took my heart, why, I don't think they could take it all. It's influence on the rest of my body will always be there, like a stain on expensive fabric. So, do you think, if I ever became a nobody... would I still act, occasionally, like I did when I was a person? Would I still sometimes get those same feelings, from that stain my heart left?"

He means for me to think, not answer, which is good, because I don't understand what he's said.

"When people with strong hearts like that become nobodies, aren't their nobodies like you?" He makes to leave, and I don't try to stop him. The conversation is over. But as he walks away, and I catch a glimpse of a long thin tail, I am still thinking about what he said.

It is true that whoever I was before the darkness had a strong heart. That is true for every member of the Organization, living and dead. But that dark figure... suggested that we... still feel? Still have some of our hearts left on us, stained forever?

I walk around the cavern's perimeter slowly, oblivious to the bright lights hovering around my body. That sensation again, creeping slowly over me. Never before have I felt it so often in a single day. But each time it is different. Somehow the tingling I get when I think about my sitar is a stranger to the numbness I have when I'm told I don't feel. And now it feels light, and good and bad at the same time, like I really want something to come true. Are these... emotions? A small sliver of those emotions I once felt? They seem so much more than pure memory to me; so real. I stop walking and unzip my black jacket a few inches, slipping my hand under the fabric. I feel no heartbeat. I have been cut in battle before, and bled no blood. And yet, does my body even now retain some of what I used to be?

My thoughts are halted as the strange feeling once again dissipates. I remember I am on a mission. I try to focus on it; it does not go away like the feelings do, but solidifies. By a strange turn of fate I have stopped right near a path to another cave, and I hastily walk through. It is time to finish my mission. Feelings or no feelings, I have orders to carry out. I have wasted enough time talking to the stranger.

Besides, what would these feelings do for me? I have no reason for feel anxious or anger towards anything, and certainly nothing to fear on this mission.

With a satisfyingly blank mind I return to roaming for the Keyblade Master.

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End file.
